SAN ANTONIO │ City and Metro Off-Topic Thread

[Spoiler]

Originally Posted by LSPaul

Apology accepted, however, I don't accept that I was engaged in what you call "jingoism". I don't want a federal response on the scale of China, perhaps the most repressive, nor that of Italy, probably the most incompetent. Even, South Korea, which did well, but at the expense of trashing personal privacy by posting the names of everyone who tested positive, is not a solution I would endorse. Thankfully, HIPAA laws here would never let that happen. We have little choice but to wait and see what type of response works best in the end.

What you don't want matters far less than what is needed. Have you found anything about the federal response so far to be worthy of criticism?

[Restless One]

Originally Posted by Spoiler

What you don't want matters far less than what is needed. Have you found anything about the federal response so far to be worthy of criticism?

Sure, there was the lack of testing equipment, which put us behind in diagnosing and quarantining people that were positive for the virus.

There is also the decades old criticism of allowing China to take over our manufacturing, especially as it related to essential goods. China has over 80 percent of the ingredients needed for wholesale manufacture of pharmaceuticals. That has to change.

If you think the lack data from China doesn't have any relation to our response, then you are kidding yourself. If you think China's rate of infection has stagnated magically since they kicked out foreign reporters, then you are just railing against the Federal government because you don't like the administration. This is no time for political bickering. Both sides have their talking points. You've chosen your side. I'll wait until the dust settles before making statements that can't be proven at this time.

The Federal government could certainly have been on the ball more, but I doubt we'll see the doomsday scenario you propose.

[Spoiler]

Time will tell.

This is no time for political bickering.

People only say this when they don't want to talk about something. For example, the federal response to this virus for weeks (valuable time that could have been spent preparing testing kits and medical supplies) was to drastically downplay its seriousness and do literally nothing. HEB knew what was up, why didn't the government?

[Restless One]

Originally Posted by Spoiler

Time will tell.



People only say this when they don't want to talk about something. For example, the federal response to this virus for weeks (valuable time that could have been spent preparing testing kits and medical supplies) was to drastically downplay its seriousness and do literally nothing. HEB knew what was up, why didn't the government?

I don't mind engaging. I don't believe your bs anymore than you believe mine, and neither will change the other's mind, so it's kind of pointless.

The leaders in New York seemed nonplussed to the virus as little as few weeks ago.

The tests were largely made in China, as well as therapeutics, and factual data on the virus was lied about, again by China.

HEB's supply chain is largely local, and certainly by and large, goods made in America. The medical supply chain we were behind on, is not. That's changing, and we are catching up rapidly. Hopefully this is a wake up call, and America manufactures more of what we need again. Especially essentials such as medical supplies and medicines.

[Spoiler]

I'm not trying to be partisan, I'm not interested in scoring cheap political points. I am reacting to a situation that was inappropriately handled from the start in a way that was objectively obvious for all to see that were paying attention. And will result in major real-world consequence of needless lives lost. However, as to your points:

Blaming China. Seems like deflection, but at least you're not blaming Obama for the lack of response, like the president. This is why I mentioned HEB. Maybe you haven't read the Texas Monthly article about their preparations. I will include some excerpts here.

On January 15, Wuhan’s Municipal Health Commission announced that the novel coronavirus was spreading via human-to-human transmission.

Justen Noakes: So when did we start looking at the coronavirus? Probably the second week in January, when it started popping up in China as an issue. We’ve got interests in the global sourcing world, and we started getting reports on how it was impacting things in China, so we started watching it closely at that point. We decided to take a harder look at how to implement the plan we developed in 2009 into a tabletop exercise. On February 2, we dusted it off and compared the plan we had versus what we were seeing in China, and started working on step one pretty heavily.

Craig Boyan: Starting in January, we’ve been in close contact with several retailers and suppliers around the world. As this has started to emerge, we’ve been in close contact with retailers in China, starting with what happened in Wuhan in the early couple of months, and what kind of lessons they learned. Over the last couple of months, [we’ve been] in close contact with some of our Italian retailers and suppliers, understanding how things have evolved in Italy and now in Spain, talking to those countries that are ahead of us in the curve. We’ve been in daily contact, understanding the pace and the change and the need for product, and how things have progressed in each of those countries.

Justen Noakes: We modeled what had been taking place in China from a transmission perspective, as well as impact. As the number of illnesses and the number of deaths were increasing, obviously the Chinese government was taking some steps to protect their citizens, so we basically mirrored what that might look like. We also took an approach to what we saw during H1N1 in 2009, and later got on top of it. Our example was if we were to get an outbreak, specifically in the Houston area, how would we manage that, and how would we respond with our current resources, as well as what resource opportunities would we have.

Craig Boyan: Chinese retailers have sent some pretty thorough information about what happened in the early days of the outbreak: how did that affect grocery and retail, how did that affect employees and how people were addressing sanitization and social distancing, how quarantine has affected the supply chain, how shopping behavior changed as the virus progressed, how did companies work to serve communities with total lockdowns, and what action steps those businesses wish they had done early in the cycle to get ahead of it.

So, if HEB was able to see the situation for what it was in China, and communicate with the Chinese about best practices and realistic outcomes, why wasn't the government?

The WHO offered the US testing kits. The US declined those kits. Testing per capita remains far below South Korea (who seem to have no problem acquiring kits), one of the only countries to successfully slow the spread of disease. Testing the asymptomatic, vital for control, continues not to happen.

Mentioning the leaders of New York's action, or lack thereof, in response to my criticism of the federal reaction (the real leaders of this entire country) again smacks of deflection.

[Restless One]

Originally Posted by Spoiler

I'm not trying to be partisan, I'm not interested in scoring cheap political points. I am reacting to a situation that was inappropriately handled from the start in a way that was objectively obvious for all to see that were paying attention. And will result in major real-world consequence of needless lives lost. However, as to your points:

Blaming China. Seems like deflection, but at least you're not blaming Obama for the lack of response, like the president. This is why I mentioned HEB. Maybe you haven't read the Texas Monthly article about their preparations. I will include some excerpts here.



So, if HEB was able to see the situation for what it was in China, and communicate with the Chinese about best practices and realistic outcomes, why wasn't the government?

The WHO offered the US testing kits. The US declined those kits. Testing per capita remains far below South Korea (who seem to have no problem acquiring kits), one of the only countries to successfully slow the spread of disease. Testing the asymptomatic, vital for control, continues not to happen.

Mentioning the leaders of New York's action, or lack thereof, in response to my criticism of the federal reaction (the real leaders of this entire country) again smacks of deflection.

Actually, state and local leaders are responsible for their citizens, so De Blazio's and Cuomo's actions or lack of, are on point. The Federal govt. can't just go in and take control of sovereign states. They must be invited to do so.

As for S. Korea, our mortality rate is exactly where there's is. Positive tests per capita would be worth mentioning as well.

I'm not sure where you got you information about WHO offering test kits, and us refusing, but WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic disagrees with you.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/18/healt...cdc/index.html

"No discussions occurred between WHO and the CDC about providing tests to the United States, WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told CNN on Tuesday, and WHO did not offer coronavirus tests to the CDC."

Notice the article is from CNN. There are also questions as to whether WHO provided tests, or test protocols for labs to use.

Yeah, the US should have used any assistance the WHO offered, and the CDC's initial tests were flawed, which cost more time. I'm not saying this administration has no blame, nor am I saying they should get all of the blame.

[Spoiler]

Originally Posted by Restless One

Actually, state and local leaders are responsible for their citizens, so De Blazio's and Cuomo's actions or lack of, are on point. The Federal govt. can't just go in and take control of sovereign states. They must be invited to do so.

As for S. Korea, our mortality rate is exactly where there's is. Positive tests per capita would be worth mentioning as well.

I'm not sure where you got you information about WHO offering test kits, and us refusing, but WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic disagrees with you.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/18/healt...cdc/index.html

"No discussions occurred between WHO and the CDC about providing tests to the United States, WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told CNN on Tuesday, and WHO did not offer coronavirus tests to the CDC."

Notice the article is from CNN. There are also questions as to whether WHO provided tests, or test protocols for labs to use.

Yeah, the US should have used any assistance the WHO offered, and the CDC's initial tests were flawed, which cost more time. I'm not saying this administration has no blame, nor am I saying they should get all of the blame.

The federal government leads the country in response to situations that affect the entire country. In this case they led the country in the wrong direction.

Again I apologize for poor word choice regarding the WHO. I should have written something more like this:

On Saturday Jan. 11 — a month and a half before the first Covid-19 case not linked to travel was diagnosed in the United States — Chinese scientists posted the genome of the mysterious new virus, and within a week virologists in Berlin had produced the first diagnostic test for the disease.

Soon after, researchers in other nations rolled out their own tests, too, sometimes with different genetic targets. By the end of February, the World Health Organization had shipped tests to nearly 60 countries.

The United States was not among them.

Why the United States declined to use the WHO test, even temporarily as a bridge until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could produce its own test, remains a perplexing question and the key to the Trump administration’s failure to provide enough tests to identify the coronavirus infections before they could be passed on, according to POLITICO interviews with dozens of viral-disease experts, former officials and some officials within the administration’s health agencies.

...But neither the CDC nor the coronavirus task force chaired by Vice President Mike Pence would say who made the decision to forgo the WHO test and instead begin a protracted process of producing an American test, one that got delayed by manufacturing problems, possible lab contamination and logistical delays.

“Please provide an explanation for why the Covid-19 diagnostic test approved by the World Health Organization was not used,” Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate health committee, who represents the hard-hit state of Washington, asked in a 3½-page letter on the testing fiasco to Pence, Health Secretary Alex Azar, CDC director Robert Redfield, and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn.

So far, none has been provided.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...failure-123166

South Korea is weeks ahead of us in terms of the spread of this virus. In a few more weeks there will be a clearer view of the efficacy of the two country's responses.

[Restless One]

Originally Posted by Spoiler

The federal government leads the country in response to situations that affect the entire country. In this case they led the country in the wrong direction.

Again I apologize for poor word choice regarding the WHO. I should have written something more like this:



https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...failure-123166

South Korea is weeks ahead of us in terms of the spread of this virus. In a few more weeks there will be a clearer view of the efficacy of the two country's responses.

Again, the Federal govt. can't just take over a state, even in emergencies, until the state declares an emergency. Then Federal resources can be used.

Yes, the Federal govt. should have been on top of this more, but to pin blame solely on them is folly, as China was not forthcoming from the earliest cases detected. Yes, the US could have stemmed the rate of infection, as could have Italy, Spain, S. Korea, and the 151 countries that have reported cases, IF China had been forthcoming from the earliest possible point.

The WHO did not make tests. They sent out protocols, and countries like Germany took them, and made tests. The WHO distributed those, and yes, the US should have taken some. At least our mortality rate is low, and hopefully goes lower.

[Spoiler]

Originally Posted by Restless One

Again, the Federal govt. can't just take over a state, even in emergencies, until the state declares an emergency. Then Federal resources can be used.

Yes, the Federal govt. should have been on top of this more, but to pin blame solely on them is folly, as China was not forthcoming from the earliest cases detected. Yes, the US could have stemmed the rate of infection, as could have Italy, Spain, S. Korea, and the 151 countries that have reported cases, IF China had been forthcoming from the earliest possible point.

The WHO did not make tests. They sent out protocols, and countries like Germany took them, and made tests. The WHO distributed those, and yes, the US should have taken some. At least our mortality rate is low, and hopefully goes lower.

I never said the feds should take over a state, I said the feds lead by example.

Chinese scientists posted the genome on January 11. On January 15, Wuhan’s Municipal Health Commission announced that the novel coronavirus was spreading via human-to-human transmission. It was reported in the news by the end of January that China was building hospitals in a week to house the infected. Again I point out that a grocery chain was alarmed by these developments by mid-January and taking proactive steps to counter the threat, because yet again you blame China's intransigence for the slow US federal response. At this point I have to wonder why you're so invested in defending the actions of this administration. This is not some silly little squabble over matters of decorum. Many, many lives will be lost because this administration wasted valuable time downplaying the seriousness of a looming health crisis.

[Rynetwo]

Well this is the last place I want to see more COVID19 talk.

Why can’t y’all use your energy to respond to the person who has asked questions in multiple threads about our faults when compared to Austin.

Side note - my phone’s keyboard still does not have COVID-19 programmed....

[LSPaul]

Originally Posted by Spoiler

I never said the feds should take over a state, I said the feds lead by example.

Chinese scientists posted the genome on January 11. On January 15, Wuhan’s Municipal Health Commission announced that the novel coronavirus was spreading via human-to-human transmission. It was reported in the news by the end of January that China was building hospitals in a week to house the infected. Again I point out that a grocery chain was alarmed by these developments by mid-January and taking proactive steps to counter the threat, because yet again you blame China's intransigence for the slow US federal response. At this point I have to wonder why you're so invested in defending the actions of this administration. This is not some silly little squabble over matters of decorum. Many, many lives will be lost because this administration wasted valuable time downplaying the seriousness of a looming health crisis.

Not interested in a political discussion or playing the blame game. If you want to see something that is pertinent to my original point I encourage you to read this...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...us-spread.html

[Geographer]

Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan are liberal democracies that have contained the coronavirus outbreak very well without mass lockdowns of the kind seen in the United States and Europe. Germany seems to be holding its own despite a large number of cases. Canada and Australia are seeing gigantic economic damage but so far they don't have mass lockdowns or deaths at the rate of Italy and Spain. And lest anyone think that totalitarian governments are experts in epidemic control then witness how Iran is struggling to contain it.

[LSPaul]

Originally Posted by Geographer

Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan are liberal democracies that have contained the coronavirus outbreak very well without mass lockdowns of the kind seen in the United States and Europe. Germany seems to be holding its own despite a large number of cases. Canada and Australia are seeing gigantic economic damage but so far they don't have mass lockdowns or deaths at the rate of Italy and Spain. And lest anyone think that totalitarian governments are experts in epidemic control then witness how Iran is struggling to contain it.

Good points. But I would point out that the Asian countries you mention have a cultural feature akin to social distancing in that touching another person not a family member is not a traditional practice (Bowing over handshaking, etc.). Italy, Spain and France, just the opposite.

I agree with what I think was your point that these lock downs won't be what ends this. Unfortunately, it's a novel (new) virus and therefore there exists no vaccine or "herd immunity". The virus will only end, I fear, after it finishes its global march and runs out of hosts lacking immunity, which, right now, is most of us.

[Restless One]

Originally Posted by Spoiler

I never said the feds should take over a state, I said the feds lead by example.

Chinese scientists posted the genome on January 11. On January 15, Wuhan’s Municipal Health Commission announced that the novel coronavirus was spreading via human-to-human transmission. It was reported in the news by the end of January that China was building hospitals in a week to house the infected. Again I point out that a grocery chain was alarmed by these developments by mid-January and taking proactive steps to counter the threat, because yet again you blame China's intransigence for the slow US federal response. At this point I have to wonder why you're so invested in defending the actions of this administration. This is not some silly little squabble over matters of decorum. Many, many lives will be lost because this administration wasted valuable time downplaying the seriousness of a looming health crisis.

As late as January, China was still DENYING human to human transmission to the WHO, and actively obstructing their own scientists form disseminating the truth, so let's stop acting like China has no guilt here. 95% of the cases could have been avoided if China had been truthful from the beginning, according to at least one study:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ad-of-covid-19

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/12170...on-coronavirus

Note the date on this tweet, by the way.^^^^

https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-e...718a5faab.html

You seem awfully invested in denying China's role in our, and the world's, response to Wuhan Virus, delays that have already caused over 35,000 deaths worldwide. Gotta wonder why that is.

As for HEB, as prepared as they might have been, there shelves went bare too, and many still are.

[Restless One]

Originally Posted by Rynetwo

Well this is the last place I want to see more COVID19 talk.

Why can’t y’all use your energy to respond to the person who has asked questions in multiple threads about our faults when compared to Austin.

Side note - my phone’s keyboard still does not have COVID-19 programmed....

I have answered that poster, numerous times. Instead of butting in on a conversation that doesn't interest you, in the "off topic" thread where it belongs, why don't YOU engage Geographer instead?

[Rynetwo]

Originally Posted by Restless One

I have answered that poster, numerous times. Instead of butting in on a conversation that doesn't interest you, in the "off topic" thread where it belongs, why don't YOU engage Geographer instead?

I already did.

Consider my butting in as more off topic banter for this thread.

I’m just not trying to see a site about buildings go into viral pandemics.

[sirkingwilliam]

This is the off-topic thread for a reason. If Covid talk is to occur anywhere in the San Antonio sub, it’ll be here.

[The Model]

[IMG]SA Skyline Love for the USA by Raul Medina III, on Flickr[/IMG]

San Antonio Skyline supporting the USA!

[Restless One]

Originally Posted by The Model

[IMG]SA Skyline Love for the USA by Raul Medina III, on Flickr[/IMG]

San Antonio Skyline supporting the USA!

Great picture as always. I really like the heart on the Marriot Riverwalk.

Thanks for getting the pics as we wile away in quarantine. Those out of town, I'm sure, are grateful.

[Restless One]

Quote:
Originally Posted by JACKinBeantown View Post
Serious question: When construction workers all have to use the same portable toilets in a small enclosed space, how is that safe with a highly contagious airborne virus?


So, everything just stops? For how long? What is your criteria for getting back to work?

This is the first time ever the healthy were quarantined and not the sick and vulnerable.

30+ million jobs lost, and you still think "stay at home" orders are just fine???

ETA: You can't take inventory from home, you can't load/unload trucks from home. You can't build needed/wanted commodities from home. At some point, you have to have actually see your inventory. You have to actually operate a forklift to load/unload inventory. You have to physically run CNC machines, glue parts, engage nuts and bolts on an industrial scale. The people that can't work from home want to earn their paychecks and pay their bills too.